


Roach

by Octinary



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game)
Genre: Blink and You'll Miss It Explanation for Roach's Teleporting, Families of Choice, Gen, Names, POV Outsider, Short & Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:47:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28064979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Octinary/pseuds/Octinary
Summary: In a trade for Yennefer's freedom, Geralt agreed to ride for several years with the Wild Hunt under Eredin's command.  During that time, while he didn't know who he was or why he was doing this, he was nevertheless very much still Geralt.They didn't give her a name when she was born.  But he did.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Roach
Comments: 46
Kudos: 198
Collections: The Witcher Flash Fic Challenge #012





	Roach

They didn’t give her a name when she was born. It didn’t bother her much at the time though. Her mother, as soon as she was old enough to understand, told her that the Aen Elle were a very practical people and did not name their horses based on any sentimental drivel. You were called upon based on your position in the herd, based on what you contributed to the survival effort, based on what you could do and what you had achieved. And so she was filly of Eredin’s Mount, out of Ni’els’ Strong Left Lead for the first five years of her life. It was a pedigree to be proud of for sure; not two months after foaling her, her mother had reaffirmed her own name in the year’s end chariot race in front of Auberon Muircetach himself and only a fool would besmirch the stallion of Eredin, leader of the Wild Hunt. Time proved her fast like her mother and strong like her father and prouder than the both of them put together. Lithe and clever and pitch black like a moonless night, save for a thin strip inherited from her mother (which could be easily hidden with barding), she was a shoe in for a mount to a Rider of the Wild Hunt. She started training as a warhorse at two and, excited to finally be earning her place, got her first real name at five and a half: Tirith’s Mount.

It was supposed to be the start of a brilliant career. What it actually was, was a fucking insult to her abilities. Tirith was useless, a backup rider to a backup rider, and totally unworthy of her. He was slow and heavy and didn’t know how to run with the herd. She couldn’t help but fight his bit at every turn since to obey him would be to embarrass herself in front of her peers. He would try to bank her left too early which would have ruined the charge, or spur her on when their proper place was in the body of the company, or try to rein her in when victory was at hand and her herdmates were trampling their foes beneath ice studded hooves like so much autumn chaff before the inevitable winds of winter.

At first, she tried to bear her misfortune with dignity. She was the filly of Eredin’s Mount! Out of Ni’els’ Strong Left Lead! Of course she would be better than any barely noble elf trying to fumble his way to prominence through a stint riding with the Wild Hunt. But surely Tirith could be taught. Surely she could show him! And then together they could rise to a glory previous unimagined! But no. Tirith would not listen to a mere horse. When she held formation despite his desperate sawing at the reins, he just pulled harder. When she ignored his spurs to keep pace with her herdmates, he just stabbed them into her with more force. When she galloped freely to crush their enemies, he just yanked hard enough on the bit to bring tears to her eyes. And her behaviour, as opposed to being seen as trying to correct her paltry rider, was seen as disobedient, and the Aen Elle had no mercy for disobedience.

Her father was the first to bring it to her attention. “Tirith’s Mount,” he said, but then upon seeing her flinch at the sobriquet, cushioned it with “My daughter.” They were not pastured together, for obvious reasons. She was a mare now, subject to her own heats and under the power of that hormonal drive neither she nor her father, nor any other stallion for that matter, could be expected to keep their heads. They were pastured near enough to snuffle at each other companionably, nose to nose, over the fences though. “The most important thing for you to display, girl, is obedience. The Aen Elle live for centuries. My rider remembers before the White Frost came to our world - when we used to run with moonshine, not snowstorms. They have bred us for them. Trust them.”

She tried. She really tried. She broke formation when Tirith pulled her too far left and raced ahead or slowed when he spurred her or reined her in. But those were, as she had known all along, the wrong things to do. And when the Hunt stopped for the night and Tirith’s lieutenant took to upbraiding him for his poor performance, she was ultimately thrown to the metaphorical wolves. The third time it happened, he actually said it, the most damning words any rider could say to their mount: that she was a bad horse. She bit him. She couldn’t help herself. And just like that she lost her name. At eight years old, she went from Tirith’s Mount to The Disobedient Spare. She was lucky, her father told her, that she was fast and that their constant raids on other worlds were so hard on the herd, or she would have been butchered for leather and meat as she deserved. The Disobedient Spare did not respond to her illustrious father.

She was prepared to die like that, following behind the Hunt with the supply wagons until she finally slipped in the snow one day and broke a leg, when he showed up: the nameless rider. He wasn’t Aen Elle, wasn’t even an elf, but Eredin said he was to ride with the Wild Hunt and so he needed a mount. He had hair as white as winter and eyes as golden as the dawn and he smelled like death a hundred times over - both his and others. The young spares, the ones who had never been a mount, danced away from him in their shared pasture, not daring to let him touch them with his curse, but The Disobedient Spare stood her ground. She rolled her eyes back at the solid spectre of a man and flattened her ears and bared her teeth and he just cooed at her in a soft voice like she had never heard before.

“You seem to know what’s what here, beautiful,” he murmured, holding his hands out where she could see them. “Care to show me the ropes?”

And he tentatively, oh so tentatively, started to scratch her neck. No one had done that for her in years, not since she was in training. And she was ruined for the Aen Elle anyway, what did she have to lose in becoming the nameless human’s mount?

They made an amazing team. The nameless human had a firm hand, but was, as he had stated when they met, open to suggestion. If she fought a command, he assessed and, more often than not, yielded to her will. In time though, he started to insist and she found that when he did insist, he was frequently right. He had a good head for mounted combat and knew both when to hold a charge and when to break formation. He also treated her better than Tirith, better even than her hopeful trainers ever had. He curried her with care and brushed her ‘til she glowed softly, like liquid pitch, talking the whole while about his day. He didn’t know who he was, only that he was honour-bound to follow Eredin and that it amused the Lord of the Wild Hunt to have him as a Rider. He didn’t like taking slaves for the Aen Elle from the human world, but didn’t know what else to do since he couldn’t disobey. He knew the White Frost that was slowly consuming the Alder elves’ land was not defeated, only stalled, and dreaded its spread to the other worlds they raided, but could ride in the winter frost with the best of them, letting his mount pick her careful steps across the icy fields they trekked. He liked taking her for long runs when they were back in the superficial summer of Tir na Lia, just the two of them, singing her snippets of songs he seemed to barely remember. And, nameless himself, he gave her a name.

Now, she can’t remember it. He never spoke it in front of the other Riders, only when the two of them were alone, and it has been years since the little Sparrow, the thin ashen haired girl with the Elder Blood, slipped in and freed him from Eredin’s grasp. Years in which she became, sullenly, Caranthir’s Mount. It should have been a great honour: Caranthir was the Golden Child of the Alder elves and one of the best navigators the Aen Elle had ever produced, but after the warmth of the nameless rider, his perpetual chill settled in her bones like a persistent ache. She obeyed him religiously, to do otherwise was certain death, and he was at least a competent rider, unlike Tirith, but she couldn’t help but inwardly yearn for the sweet days of quiet conversations and gentle grooming and sharing secret apples.

She didn’t mourn when she heard that Caranthir had met his end, even if it did leave her nameless again. She didn’t mourn to hear of Eredin’s passing, or her father’s either. It had been years since they had breathed on each other, sharing the same air in companionable silence. Despite having redeemed herself, she had always been The Disobedient Spare to him. After the battle with the humans in this strange land called Skellige, the herd was in complete disarray. So many riders had fallen, and without their navigator there was some doubt whether they would even make it back to their homeworld. Which was when the nameless horse that was Caranthir’s Mount, The Disobedient Spare and Tirith’s Mount, who was the filly of Eredin’s Mount out of Ni’els’ Strong Left Lead, realized that she didn’t care to return to her so-called home. This world, where they were theoretically stranded, was where the Sparrow had taken her nameless rider. Somewhere in this world, was a name for her. She hopped the fence and, having learned more than a few things in her tenure as the carrier of the Aen Elle’s navigator, winked out of existence with a whinny and the scent of snow. She was not so naive as to think finding him would be easy, but no one had ever doubted her stubbornness.

She finally found him in a summer country where grapes grew like weeds and then men wore armour that reflected the sun like mirrors. Catching the hint of him on the wind, she pranced into the villa, forcing the workers to scatter before her. He was sitting in a courtyard with three other humans having a meal.

“Geralt…” A violet eyed woman who smelled of lilac and magic noticed her first and tapped her rider’s arm to bring his attention to her entrance.

“Is that?” The Sparrow spoke next, standing and looking aghast. “That’s an Aen Elle horse!”

“The Wild Hunt?” A gaudily dressed man who had been singing a snipped of a song she thought she knew spoke next. “Here? I thought you’d handled them!”

A swirl of chaos circled the sorceress, “We will deal with them again if necessary! I-”

“I don’t believe it!” The witch was interrupted by her rider standing, almost upending the table while doing so, and rushing over to greet her properly. She breathed on his face and let him scratch her neck while she lipped at his shoulder affectionately. “Roach!”

Yes, she thought contentedly to herself, that was her name. Now and forever more.

**Author's Note:**

> I am also on tumblr ([Octinary](https://octinary.tumblr.com)) if you want to chat or ask me anything!


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